


The poem

by Fighting_for_Creativity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes & Tony Stark Friendship, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Developing Relationship, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Team as Family, Up all night to get Bucky (Marvel), mainly POV Bucky Barnes, original male character only in the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23683531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fighting_for_Creativity/pseuds/Fighting_for_Creativity
Summary: Finding out that his best friend was still alive was both a blessing and a curse. Steve was hurting enough at that. then the blasted Smithsonian goes and displays a very intimate poem. After he got over that, he finally finds Bucky.But, Soldat didn't like being called Bucky.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Stucky Remix 2020





	The poem

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Truths to Shatter a Frozen Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21093095) by [Roger that (achuislemochroi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/Roger%20that). 



> The summary is one of my worst... I don't know. *huffs*
> 
> A lot of thanks to my beta P. You always catch stuff I miss.
> 
> I had plenty of fun writing this Remix and I included the original poem from Rogers that. (Which this fic is the Remix of.)
> 
> It's my entry for the Stucky Remix 2020 ^-^
> 
> Hope you enjoy~

Sometime after the whole SHIELDRA affair, the Smithsonian received a stack of notebooks. In the midst of mostly now declassified war information, one from around the final days of Captain America stood out like a sore thumb. While all the others were leatherbound, clearly of higher quality with lined paper and well maintained, this one was unbound and more a stack of a few unlined sheets of paper with more newspaper than not tucked in between.

For the curator, it was the most interesting one, as it was the odd one out. When Mister Smith unwrapped the packaging, his heart nearly stopped. On the first page, he was greeted by very familiar handwriting. Mister Smith carefully flipped page after page to find more proof than the doodles everyone knew about. ‘ _ Captain America is truly an artist at heart. So many doodles, so little text. _ ’

Here and there he could read comments on some of the newspaper articles written in the neat handwriting. Smith didn’t look closely at the dates of the entries until he stumbled over one of the blank pages. The entry was a poem. The curator read it once, twice and countless more times. 

> **_This world is wild and lonely without you._ **
> 
> **_And the memories are so bittersweet;_ **
> 
> **_A wind blows through my soul, shrieking your name,_ **
> 
> **_Pulling an aching echo from my heart._ **
> 
> **_Regret is such a poison to the soul,_ **
> 
> **_And yet that's all I ever seem to find;_ **
> 
> **_Your name forever on the lips, my love,_ **
> 
> **_Of a broken coward who yearns, who seeks,_ **
> 
> **_Absolution that he scarce deserves_ **
> 
> **_For failing to declare what should have been_ **
> 
> **_The easiest of things to tell: the truth._ **
> 
> **_But I held back from speaking love, from fear._ **
> 
> **_Thus did I treat the one whom I adored:_ **
> 
> **_So thus do I here reap my just reward._ **

The poem wasn’t dated, but there was only one last entry after it, dated the day before the Captain crashed the Valkyrie. Smith read that as well, and realized that this notebook was more a personal journal/diary than an official record. Normally, the museum only displayed such intimate things of people long dead, or those who gave their direct permission.

_ ‘Well, so far the Captain has always agreed if we wanted to display some of his things. Maybe I could just put the poem on display in the artistic section of his part of the exhibition...He won’t mind, right?’ _

Soon the whole world knew of the poem about a mystery love of the Captain. The whole world speculated if it was Carter or another girl of his time, maybe someone he knew before he became Captain America?

Only Steve knew. However, when he found out about the poem being recovered, he stopped going outside for a while. Soon he didn’t even linger after missions to make sure everyone was alright. That action made the public somewhat aware of the sensitivity of the poem and the Smithsonian removed it from their exhibition. Everything returned to their old ways. Everything and everyone except for a certain super-soldier.

~~~~~

Soldat felt like he should know the blond man who was chasing him. Soldat-  _ Bucky? _ \- was supposed to know him, according to the various sources he had consulted. James Bucky Barnes was the target’s best friend, after all. Therefore they should know each other.

‘ _That is, if I am really James “Bucky” Barnes,_ ’ he thought. Soldat was currently in a small apartment in Romania. He sat on his couch, waiting for the other super-soldier to make up his mind if he was entering or staying outside his door. 

A while ago Soldat had decided to stop running and wait for the Captain to catch up with him. Steve Rogers was so sure that Soldat was Sergeant Barnes, so relentlessly searching for him, that the brunet decided to question him.

_ Who am I? _

_ Who was I? _

_ How have I not been recognized before? _

_ Who are you to me, Captain? Who am I to you? _

Sol- James needed answers to his many questions and the blond was his best chance at finding them.

Finally, the doorknob, left unlocked for the blond, turned, and a tall man entered hesitantly.

“Bucky?”

“Captain America.”

As soon as Soldat spoke those words, Steve hastened his pace, closed the door and rounded the couch. For a while they stared at each other, cataloging each other’s expressions, state of clothing, skin tone. Soldat knew he looked bad. He hadn’t been able to grab a new set of clothes, and had not been able to wash his current ones. He didn’t shave and his hair was oily despite his attempts at basic hygiene.

Meanwhile, the Captain looked healthy, if a bit tired. Dark circles under his eyes were proof that neither of the soldiers had slept much in the past weeks.

“You, erm.. you look good?” Steve’s sentence came out weak, more a question than the intended statement.

Soldat stared before he allowed himself a small huff. “What do you want?”

“I can help you. I can bring you home. Tony, well, he wasn’t happy when I told him at first, needed time. But he said you can come with us to live in the Tower. Get checked on and kept safe!”

The enthusiasm, the sheer force of hope, in those words knocked the breath out of the brunet.

How could a stranger, a man who he tried to kill, be so sure that he was truly Barnes?

How could he trust him?

How could Soldat trust Rogers?

“Why should I trust you?” His voice was rough when he asked, would be rough for a good amount of time from years of mostly muteness.

~~~

Steve had thought that as soon as he found his best friend, everything would be better. To know that Bucky was still alive, out there hurting, had reopened a wound Steve had thought had been scarred over. Sam and Tony had helped him a lot during the first few weeks after that. Just as the blond was ready to go on a chase, the blasted museum had found his poem and displayed it for the world to speculate about his love. 

At first, his teammates had teased him about it. However, when he didn’t answer any of them, didn’t leave his room anymore, they and finally the world shut up about it. One evening Tony came with some root beer and just sat with him, while he stared into the darkness of his room. That was when he told the brunet everything. From who the person in the poem was to what Bucky under HYDRA had done to Tony’s parents.

The genius had left straight after. The next morning Steve found a note, an actual paper note, on his door.

_ I need time. Take the jet and find your boy.  _

_ I’m going to Malibu. I’ll come back when I’m ready. You two need each other, Steve. Find him. _

Steve delayed the search for another day before he gave in to temptation and called Sam for help. They had been searching for months until they finally tracked Bucky down in Romania.

Seeing Bucky worse for wear hurt. Steve swore it was a physical ache, his lungs feeling constricted, like back when he had asthma attacks. All of those things didn’t matter now, though. Right now Steve needed to convince Bucky to come with him, then everything could be good again.

But to hear the underlying distrust when Bucky asked why he should be trusted, that nearly broke him apart. He took a deep breath, tried to stay calm, tried to stay in control, but he was slowly losing it. To know that his best friend was still alive, to know that he was suffering, was being used all those years, it had torn Steve apart already. 

Sam, Nat and then Tony had tried to keep him together. They had succeeded until the blasted poem was discovered. Then? Then it was the search, the hope that Bucky remembered him and trusted and lo- liked him like back then. 

The longer Bucky stared at him, eyes so cold with only a bare minimum of recognition, the worst Steve felt. 

“Bucky, please,” begging was all Steve had left in himself. “I don’t know how, but I’ll prove it to you. I will! Please come with me.”

Seconds passed, feeling like endlessness, and as Steve lost all hope, was about to fling himself on Bucky to keep him at least in the same room for a moment longer, the brunet gave a soft nod.

“‘Kay.”

Steve needed a moment to process this. “O-okay?”

“Da. I will come with you.” Bucky stood, still cautious, but he got closer to Steve and stayed next to him as he asked, “Where to?”

‘ _ It’s progress, Steve. Small steady progress. That’s what Sam said. That’s what Tony and Nat warned me about. Be patient. He needs you now. _ ’

“Sam Wilson, the Falcon, he’s here with me. Well, not here, but he is my lookout at the moment. We’ll meet him at the jet and then fly to New York. Stark Tower, to be precise. You’ll love it there, Bucky. A ton of tech, not even the sci-fi books you devoured were able to imagine.” 

Bucky stayed silent but gave a curt nod. He got his stash of hidden weapons and supplies before he indicated for Steve to take the lead.

~~~

The tower was indeed marvelous. Over the course of three weeks, James, as he liked to be called, received a call from a lawyer he didn’t know he had, was dragged before a judge, cleared of all charges, had his status as a POW being reinstated for the time he had been in HYDRA’s not so tender care, got to know the team, had found out about the Starks- which had been a real mess and nearly led to him fleeing the states- and became somewhat friendly with the team.

Still, something between him and Steve just didn’t mesh. The blond kept calling James Bucky, which hurt James more than he could describe, and as a result, James avoided Steve. Most of his free time, he spent with either Natalia or, to everyone’s surprise, Tony. 

When James complained about Steve’s behavior to Natalia and Tony, both just looked at him strangely, sighed once and left the room in unison, which was the strangest thing he had seen in a while. It also left him wondering what those two knew that he didn’t. His next source of information was Sam, but that man just shook his head and said, “Talk to him.”

“Thanks for nothing, Wilson. I was actually trying to avoid that.”

“Listen, man. Steve, he’s… you know what. Ask the internet about Captain America’s poem. Maybe that will clear things up.”

“What do you-”

Before James finished, Sam walked out on him. Somehow, he had the feeling none of the others would give him any more information than he had already got. So, as he was back in his room, he asked JARVIS to show him the poem Sam had mentioned. As he read it, something clawed at his brain. A lost memory wanting to be rediscovered, but not reachable for him yet. Something about the dates on the pages before and after it, the way Steve wrote, the way those words resonated within James haunted him for the rest of his fourth week in the tower and throughout his fifth.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore, and knocked on Steve’s door.

  
  


~~~

“Bucky.” Steve’s eyes widened when he saw his best friend standing in front of his door. “Come in.”

The blond moved to the side to let Bucky in and tried to get his nervousness back under control. Their last few interactions hadn’t gone so smoothly, and had left him more hurt than anything else. 

When Bucky finally stepped inside, Steve couldn’t help but notice his clenched fists and tense jawline. His friend looked ready for a fight. Feeling worry bloom in his chest, Steve reached out to place a hand on Bucky’s shoulder but was shrugged off. Dear God did that hurt.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve got questions.” His friend’s low growl was not reducing Steve’s worry but intensifying it. 

“Ask away, then. Whatever I can help you with. Did you remember any-”

“Stop. I’ve told you not to bring up the past. I don’t wanna talk about-” Bucky took a deep breath while he closed his eyes for a moment and then stared Steve down. “Actually, I am here to talk about the past, kinda. I’ve read your poem.”

That was a punch in the stomach, or at least it felt like that to Steve. He knew playing dumb would not help him in any way. Therefore he sighed and went to sit on a chair in his room. Steve’s voice was rather flat as he asked, “What about it?” 

“Who was it for?”

“You really wanna know the answer, Bucky?” 

“God damn it! Stop handling me with kid gloves or acting like I’m your best buddy forever. I don’t know you! What I did know of you, I’ve mostly forgotten, so stop it, Stevie!”

That,  **_that,_ ** made a rage rise in Steve that was unknown to him before. “Are you even trying to remember? Or are you content to stay in this new world with no ties? Are you  _ happy _ that you’ve forgotten everything? Do you like hurting me? Calling me Stevie, looking at me like I’m the worst kind of person, asking me about that blasted poem. Gosh darn!”

“How dare you accuse me of not trying?! Who doesn’t see reason and refuses to call me James like everyone else? Who always argues that I would hate being called what I explicitly asked everyone to call me? I’m the one not trying? Hah! Funny that, Rogers. Because from my side it’s you!” The brunet’s voice was only a step away from yelling. Both men were giving in to their emotions, and this would soon escalate into a fistfight. Steve already had risen from his seat again and both were stalking towards each other.

“Also, what has you calling me Bucky, going against my wishes with that alone, how has that got anything to do with that stupid poem? How are-”

“BECAUSE IT’S YOU!” screamed Steve. 

That got both to stop in their advance. A look of horror passed over the blond’s face before he averted his eyes from Buc- from James’.

~~~~

James was definitely not prepared for this. “Me?”

“Yeah. You.”

First the whole ‘Bucky’ thing, then their argument, and now this confession. Because James was acutely aware that the poem was a love letter. A love letter written shortly after his presumed death. “You… you loved me?”

“Love. As in… I’m still in love with you- or well… With Bucky. That’s why it’s so hard. I’m sorry.”

Steve sounded hurt, small, lost. A sense of ‘that’s not right’ filled James. Steve was not meant to feel like that. Steve was never supposed to be lost, never had been, only after- ‘ _ Only after his mom’s funeral. I… I offered to live with him. I… _ ’

“No. Don’t… Just. I need time. We need time to- you know.”

“Identify ourselves with the new age and adapt to changed bonds?”

Squinting at the blond, James let out a flat laugh, “You hang out too much with Wilson.”

The small, unsure smile on Steve’s face told James that they had a long way to go but maybe they could become friends again. He said as much. “Listen. I’m not… I don’t really know who I am at the moment. Nat and Tony help, because they let me be however I need to be, whenever I need it. Just, respect my wishes and we maybe can, I dunno, hang out separately from the team once or twice a week in the beginning?”

“I’d… I’d like that. I’ll try but- please try not to take it the wrong way when I slip. James.” 

James heard the hesitance and the insecurity and his heart ached for the other. “It’s ok, Stevie. We’ll manage. Somehow. I mean-” he stopped shortly before he continued softer, “Best friends and brothers from another mother, right.”

_ ‘I don’t know what I can offer you Steve but I hope I can at least give you that back.’ _

  
  


“Yeah, till the end of the line.” He said. What James heard was:  _ I’ll take what I can. _

~~~

A year flew by without either of them realizing it. At first they only met twice a week, but soon they met every second day, and then made room for each other an hour a day. James wasn’t cleared for field duty, despite him making great progress with his therapy. What he was cleared for was civilian life and the craziness called Avengers team bonding. He loved that. Nat and Tony had helped with B.A.R.F. sessions and training; Clint and Thor were wonderfully funny; Banner and he meditated together; Sam, Steve and he did at least a light run in the morning. 

James was a fully integrated member of the team. Which was why he knew that something was off when they brought back the scepter. He talked about that with his therapist, who thankfully had a direct line to Maria Hill. Together with her, James thwarted the HYDRA plan to make the team self-destruct. After apprehending the Witch and her brother, and Thor taking the scepter to Asgard for safekeeping, normalcy settled back in again. 

Well, as normal as life with the Avengers could be. There was just one last issue for James to get it out. He and Steve were scheduled for their daily hour, and James had asked for Steve to come to his rooms this time. Nervously, the brunet walked towards his desk on which a sheet of paper rested. He stroked over the words, felt a heat rising in himself. Yet, unlike the all-consuming heat of rage, this one was soothing and kept the ice away that still threatened to take up residence in him every once in a while.

A soft knock and the click of the door signaled his best friend, his  _ family _ had arrived. “Hey, James!”

“Hey, punk. I’d say c’mon in, but you’re already in.” James didn’t need to turn around to see the sheepish pinking of Steve’s cheeks. 

“Uhm”

“Don’t bother. Would you come over here for a moment, though?” How James hated that his voice nearly broke because of nerves.

“Sure, are you alright, James?”

The brunet waited till Steve was beside him, before he swept up the paper and passed it to Steve. 

“I think that one belongs to you.”

It was the poem. James heard Steve’s breath catch and glanced towards him. He looked stricken and suddenly James wasn’t so sure he was going about this the right way. “Stevie, listen… I. No. Read the back.”

“W-whatcha… mean back? I’ve never wrote on-”

“You didn’t. I did.”

James leaned sideways, bumping their shoulders together to reassure his friend, as Steve read.

When the blond finished, James glanced at him once more and was worried when he saw tears glistening on Steve’s lashes. “Stevie?”

“I’d love to, Bucky- I mean-”

He chuckled a bit. “Hm. Maybe I can live with Bucky once in a while, punk.”

The bright smile he received, the tender yet strong hug that followed, was well worth enduring that stupid nickname once in a while. With a last look towards the sheet of paper Steve had placed tenderly back on the desk, James knew it was the right course of action.

  
  


> **My world has been ice for so long,**
> 
> **My memory of you taken**
> 
> **A name lost to me, a face remembered still**
> 
> **Mind blank, heart and soul screaming.**
> 
> **Their words poisoned me**
> 
> **Lost myself thoroughly**
> 
> **Your face the only thing to see**
> 
> **My feelings tender but blooming**
> 
> **Still, you deserve more than me.**
> 
> **But if you agree to take this broken being,**
> 
> **Fear shall not be between you and me**
> 
> **You have done nothing wrong so-**
> 
> **for the christ sakes, Stevie-**
> 
> **let us be: lovers for eternity**


End file.
